he year when I arrived, however, and many men who
had been employed during the summer were now discharged at the approach
of winter. Mr. Eustrom's employer had a good friend in New Hampshire, an
old Swedish sailor, Anderson by name, who was farming up there. He
promised to let me come and live with him and do whatever chores I could
until something might turn up the next spring.

A few days afterwards I went by rail to Contocook where I was met by Mr.
Anderson, who took me out to his hospitable home a couple of miles from
the town. This Anderson was a remarkable man. Having no education to
speak of, he was a better judge of human nature and practical affairs of
life than any other man I ever met. He was pleased with me, and said he
wished I would sit down in the evening and tell him about Sweden, and
explain to him what I had learned at school. Poor Anderson! He had one
fault, rum got the better of him, and it was cheap in New England at
that time, only sixteen cents a gallon. He bought a barrel of it at a
time, and did not taste water as long as the rum lasted.

The day after my arrival he asked me if I would like to go with him into
the woods to help cut some logs. Of course I would, and we took our axes
and started off. It was a very cold December day, and I had thin clothes
and no mittens. Mr. Anderson went to cut down a tree, and I commenced to
work at one which was already felled. This was the first time I swung an
axe in earnest, and after a short while I felt that my hands were
getting cold. But I made up my mind not to stop until the log was
finished. By holding the axe handle very tight it stopped the
circulation of the blood through my fingers, and when I finally stopped
and dropped the axe I could not move my fingers, for eight of them were
frozen stiff. Mr. Anderson now took off his cap, filled it with snow,
put my hands into the snow, and thus we ran to the house as fast as our
legs would carry us. The doctor tried his very best; but, nevertheless,
in a few days the flesh and the nails began to peel off, and two doctors
decided to amputate all the fingers on my right hand. Fortunately I did
not give my consent, but told them that I would rather die of gangrene
than live without hands, for my future depended exclusively on them.

My friend Eustrom, having heard of my misfortune, soon came to visit me,
and brought with him an old Irish woman who was something of a doctor,
and cured my hands by means of a ve